What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Author:Arturo Perez-Reverte
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

7

Of Thieves and Spies

THE BAY OF Angels was still a deep shade of blue. The high rocks beneath the chateau of Nice offered protection from the mistral wind, which barely riffled the water on that part of the shoreline. Leaning against the parapet wall at Rauba-Capeù, Max turned his gaze from the white sails of a sloop moving away from the port and looked at Mauro Barbaresco, standing next to him with his jacket unbuttoned, his necktie loosened, hands thrust in the pockets of his crumpled trousers, hat tipped back on his head. He had dark shadows under his eyes, and his face needed the attentions of a barber.

“There are three typewritten letters,” he was telling Max. “They’re in a folder Ferriol keeps in the safe in his study at his sister’s villa. No doubt there are other documents in there. But we’re only interested in the letters.”

Max glanced at the other man, Domenico Tignanello, who had the same disheveled appearance as his colleague. He was standing a few yards away, leaning with a weary air against the door of a dilapidated black Fiat 514 with French plates and a dirty mudguard, gazing gloomily up at the monument to the dead of the Great War. Both men looked as if they had spent an uncomfortable night. Max imagined them lying awake, earning their meager salary as small-time spies, tailing someone (possibly him), or driving through the night from the nearby border, chain-smoking in the glare of the headlights along the twisting black ribbon of asphalt, bordered by streaks of white paint on the trees lining the road.

“Don’t take the wrong letters,” Barbaresco went on. “We want those three and no others. Double-check before taking them, and make sure you put the file back where it was. The longer it takes Ferriol to find out they’re missing, the better.”

“I need an exact description.”

“You’ll recognize them easily from the official seal. They were written between July twentieth and August fourteenth of last year, a few days after the military uprising in Spain.” Barbaresco paused for a moment, wondering how much more he should reveal. “They are signed by Count Ciano.”

Max listened impassively to this information as he tucked his cane under his arm and reached into his pocket for his cigarette case. He gently tapped a cigarette against the lid and placed it between his lips without lighting it. Like everyone else, he knew who Count Galeazzo Ciano was. Newspaper headlines carried his name, and his face often appeared among the pages of illustrated magazines and newsreels. Swarthy, good-looking, and elegant, always in uniform or wearing evening dress, Il Duce’s son-in-law (he was married to Mussolini’s daughter Edda) was minister of foreign affairs in the fascist government.

“It would help if I knew more. What is in these letters?”

“You don’t need to know much. They contain secret communiqués about preliminary military operations in Spain, as well as expressing my government’s sympathy for the patriotic uprising of Generals Mola and Franco. For reasons that are of no concern to us or to you, the letters must be retrieved.

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